Thursday, 22 March 2018

What exactly is the tobacco playbook?

The meat industry’s tactics in defending bacon have been “right out of the tobacco industry’s playbook”, according to Marion Nestle, professor of nutrition and food studies at New York University.

No slippery slope there, then! But what exactly is 'the tobacco industry's playbook'? It's a phrase we hear a lot these days when campaigners are trying the poison the well against their perceived enemies. I've done a bit of searching and the tobacco playbook seems to be used by nearly everybody and includes nearly everything. Here's my top twenty...

A recent review found that in the past five years, Pepsi and Coke
sponsored nearly 100 health-related organizations including the American
Diabetes Association, the American Heart Association, the Academy of
Nutrition and Dietetics and even The Obesity Society.

They have their response straight out of the big tobacco playbook
and they use it. “Although we are constantly exploring the subject,
currently there is no direct evidence that links cell phone usage to
brain cancer.”

“That appeal to macho culture is straight
out of the tobacco industry playbook. They are using a lot of the same
tactics ... it’s targeting your kids, it’s often sexist and designed
with the intent of creating the problem gamblers of tomorrow,” he said.

The
electronic cigarette ads push the same themes as old cigarette ads:
sophistication, freedom, equality and individualism, said Timothy de
Waal Malefyt, a visiting associate professor at Fordham University’s
business school and former advertising executive.

“As Big Tobacco corners the e-cigarette market, it is using
e-cigarettes as a global PR scheme to gloss over its tarnished image,
positioning itself as a‘solution’ to the problem it drives. In reality,
the e-cigarette industry is taking advantage of the regulatory vacuum to
employ the Big Tobacco playbook to hook a new generation on its
products,” said John Stewart of the U.S.-based group Corporate
Accountability International.

Thirteen Members of Congress today called on the Food
and Drug Administration (FDA) to take immediate action to protect young
people from predatory e-cigarette marketing and distribution tactics
that are straight out of big tobacco's playbook.

Today, Big Soda faces the same PR challenges as Big Tobacco, and its
PR strategy is straight out of the Big Tobacco playbook. In fact, the
soda industry taps many of the same PR firms that helped Big Tobacco
deceive the public for so long.

“This lawsuit is straight out of Big Tobacco’s playbook that
Big Soda is now using,” Martin Bourque, executive director of the
nonprofit Ecology Center and a member of the Measure D campaign
committee, said in an email.

“This comes right out of the tobacco industry’s
playbook: cast doubt on the science,” said Marion Nestle, a professor of
nutrition, food studies and public health at New York University who
studies conflicts of interest in nutrition research. “This is a classic
example of how industry funding biases opinion. It’s shameful.”

Taking a page right out of Big Tobacco’s playbook, five major beverage manufacturers are ponying up $67.7 million to prove that a glass of wine, beer or cocktail every day will increase one’s chances of avoiding a heart attack and live longer.

“Predatory marketing to children was the hallmark of Big
Tobacco nearly two decades ago,” Madhusoodanan wrote in an e-mail.
“McDonald’s and the fast food industry have taken a page right out of
Big Tobacco’s playbook and are driving an epidemic of diet-related
diseases by getting kids addicted to their junk food at a young age and
building brand loyalties that last a lifetime.”

Sabet said the marijuana industry is taking "pages right out of the big tobacco playbook."
"I
think no doubt we are going down the path of creating Big Tobacco 2.0,"
Sabet said. "When you look at the techniques of the marijuana
industry, they downplay risks, they produce marijuana candies and other
fun items, they fund research and political advocacy and most of all
they are corporate CEOs poised to make millions, the comparison couldn't
be more perfect."

The editorial also compared the people behind “pot-peddling” to those
who sell cigarettes. “Marketing pot to consumers while they carry out
everyday tasks is right out of the old Big Tobacco playbook,” the piece
stated.

Tactics employed by the food and drink industry to influence the
public health debate are “identical” to those used by the tobacco
industry 30 years ago, experts have warned.

“It’s exactly identical to tobacco,” said Professor Timothy Noakes,
an authority on nutrition who has witnessed colleagues accepting funding
from Coca-Cola and PepsiCo.

“The only difference is, in the
past the public was not as aware as they are today of the dangers and
benefits of different products. Now the companies have to be cleverer and they have to target scientists who are particularly influential.”

Both tobacco and junk food companies emphasise the importance of personal choice.

Is the anti-sugar tax lobby taking a page from Big Tobacco’s playbook?

This week, the Institute of Race Relations became the latest organisation to attempt to discredit research
showing that taxing sugary drinks could save lives in South Africa.
Hofman cautions that attacks on the public health rationale behind the
tax may be similar to ploys that health activists, particularly
anti-tobacco campaigners, have seen before.

The institute
questioned the rationale behind the proposed tax, arguing that it would
only be a burden on the poor and would not reduce obesity.

Hofman has hit back, saying that the tobacco lobby spent years trying to discredit scientific research that revealed the dangers of smoking.

“This
is a strategy from the tobacco playbook, in which they [the industry]
tried to discredit peer-reviewed scientific research."

Remember the Tobacco Institute? The "research" organization set up by
Big Tobacco that served mainly to obfuscate and distort what they and
other scientists knew about the incredibly harmful effects of smoking?

Evidence Suggests the Oil Industry Wrote Big Tobacco's Playbook, Then Used It to Lie About Climate Change

It has long been assumed that, in its efforts to
deceive investors and the public about the negative impact its business
has on the environment, Big Oil borrowed Big Tobacco's so-called
tactical "playbook." But these documents indicate that infamous playbook
appears to have actually originated within the oil industry itself.

About Me

Writer and researcher at the Institute of Economic Affairs. Blogging in a personal capacity.
Author of Selfishness, Greed and Capitalism (2015), The Art of Suppression (2011), The Spirit Level Delusion (2010) and Velvet Glove, Iron Fist (2009).

"Of all tyrannies, a tyranny exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end, for they do so with the approval of their own conscience."